Awad poems on Hello Poetry

Michelle Awad Mar 2020

GARBAGE SPACE SOUL TRASH
by Michelle Awad

This city 
doesn’t do earth sounds,
 it speaks in tongues,
otherworldly garbled  nonsense,
she says
 melted sugar, 
she says
 orange glaze, 
don’t listen, there is no
 such thing 
as listening, open 
your mouth, concentrate on
on the vibrations,  my
bloodstream feels  buoyant,
and willing; this
 city says she  was here
 before the Ice Age and the
 Big Bang. The liquor store
 around the corner 
sells butterscotch pudding 
that’ll knock you dead, and
 you’ll say thank you, 
but it will sound 
like cinnamon.

I was 26
 when I moved here,
 a little young
 for my age, I slept 
alone
 except for when 
I didn’t, I learned 
to play the violin
 on his heartstrings, 
I learned there’s no such  thing 
as good whiskey, but  you
don’t drink it
 for the taste.

This city
 doesn’t do earth sounds, 
doesn’t do love songs,  
doesn’t do good morning 
texts, I tell you—just
 a drum beat you hear as
 a confession, a sax solo that
 needs an RSVP, it’s okay
 to be a little less, to be  
a little more 
than human, when it’s 
healthy, just some good  
old-fashioned
 trash soul space garbage,
 some crushed velvet in your 
veins, just  goosebumps and
 smoke rings, and you’d look
 like a lava lamp if they opened
 you up, honey. And you only 
hear it
 if you forget everything you know 
about everything, about  language,
and logic, there’s no  room for biology
when she says 
lemon zest, she says 
turmeric, she says  
nape of my neck.

  You lick your lips.

#city #poem #poetry

Michelle Awad Mar 2020

ON ALL THE DIFFERENT WAYS TO BE HUNGRY

ON ALL THE DIFFERENT WAYS TO BE HUNGRY  
by Michelle Awad

My front porch 
might as well be 
Heaven’s Gate, might
 as well be a rain forest,  
might as well be 
a coliseum, an alter,
 a library.

A man
 walks by 
on the sidewalk,
 I make eye contact, 
and wave, he asks me,
if I have a few dollars
 or some change, he
calls me  ma’am, and 
I say, no, I’m sorry.

The no is a lie.
The sorry is only
a  half-lie, as sorries
often  are, he waves and 
continues on his way,
 I notice his sport coat, 
his dark-wash jeans,
 he’s a little scruffy of
 face, but otherwise  he
does not look 
to be wanting,
but  what does that mean, 
in the grand scheme 
of things, I think.

I don’t look
 like I cried myself 
to sleep.

#poem #poetry

Michelle Awad Mar 2020

ARE YOU THERE ELVIS? IT’S ME, MICHELLE

ARE YOU THERE ELVIS? IT’S ME, MICHELLE
by Michelle Awad

 My grandmother only
cries
in the face of death,
and even then,
it is shrouded in
laughter,
like her body is  rejecting
the notion.

  I have come to  understand 
that this
 is hereditary.

Now.

An appointment card  arrives 
in the mail for you, 
she breaks down;
“Blue Christmas” plays
 through the car stereo,
 she breaks down;
she doesn’t sleep, she thinks
 she can hear you 
moaning and coughing 
in the next room. Yesterday,
 my aunt asked her  a question,
and she told her
 she didn’t know,
to go ask  you. 

I remember your hands,  
as dandelion wishes, and 
the smell of  lawn clippings,
and
a stack of  word search puzzle booklets
 on your side table, but  
I never catch myself
 talking about you 
in the present tense.

It's something
I deeply wish
was hereditary.

#hereditary #poem #poetry #family

Michelle Awad Mar 2020

SOCIAL DISTANCING

SOCIAL DISTANCING  
by Michelle Awad

I have tried 
swallowing
 my pride, but my 
pride is jagged of edge
 and bitter of taste,
 I have
 to **** on it
 for a while
before  it’ll go down
properly. Too often, 
loving myself is like
 taking a dry pill, 
there is always 
this thing stuck 
in my esophagus, 
and I think maybe it’s
 words, so here I am, and  
I think maybe it’s  shameful, 
so here I am, I

went inside 
just now 
thinking I’d lay myself 
in your lap
 without warning,  but the mood 
wasn’t right, I don’t know
 how else to explain it, 
it feels like
 we are low on battery, 
we need charging,
it’s a  blackout, we’re a city,
I  don’t know how else to
 explain it, and how do  you
begin to repair what  is
broken in ways  you
can’t explain? So  instead 
I sat on the opposite end
 of the couch,  I listened to you
relay  a conversation you were 
having with technology. You 
are an excellent translator,
 but this isn’t my idea 
of communicating. I 
decided
 to come outside and  write this,
instead of kissing you, 
and that sounds crazy to me, 
to do anything
 instead of kissing you,
 that’s ******* crazy, all we  ever
 talk about
 is this ******* quarantine,  
how on earth  do we feel  
so far apart lately.

#quarantine #poetry #poem #love

Michelle Awad Mar 2020

THE WORST PART OF A BREAK-UP

THE WORST PART OF A BREAK-UP
by Michelle Awad

  is not the screaming, 
not the gut-clenching 
holding/un-holding,
fighting 
back tears, it’s not the 
I can’t do this anymores, or 
this isn’t workings, not the
 storming out, or the
returning  house keys, or
the picking up your  things,
you left them here,  they’re
in a box on the porch 
if you want them back, or I 
can give them to Goodwill. 
Either way, you have a
week.

The worst part
 of a break-up

is

much bigger
 much quieter
 much later

it’s
that I can’t find 
a **** picture
 of myself that isn’t
 a picture of you,
it’s
deleting them,  it’s
 selling those  concert tickets,
 it’s unremembering, 
phone numbers,
 and birthdays, and what 
you’d find funny, it’s
wanting to tell you,
it's
 the ritual,
 the cleansing,  the
things that we  do,
 the things that we  have
to do,
  to pretend  that
we’re not actually

breaking.3

#breakingup #breakup #poem #poetry

Michelle Awad Mar 2020

IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES
by Michelle Awad

 I burst
 forth,
 slimy,
 sticky,
 slippery,  
red, 
I never stopped 
being red, actually,
 crying,
 always crying,
 maybe that’s why
 I try not to 
lately,  they gave me
 to my mother,
 and she laughed, 
what the hell
 am I gonna 
do with you,  
my father
 was in the room, 
or maybe he wasn’t,
 probably
he wasn’t,
 the second thing 
I knew 
after the warmth of  the womb
 was the coldness of
space. My father,
 the Great Collector,  of bar stools,
and gasoline
 receipts, of
 more women’s children
 than he knew 
what to do with;  

I thank
whatever God
 there is
 for my mother, 
lying there,
 slimy, 
sticky,
 slippery,
 red,
because of me,
not unafraid,
but brave,
they gave me  to her,
and she laughed, 
what the hell
 am I gonna 
do with you,
 she said, and she never
 got an answer 
any more
 than he did.

She loved me anyway.

#mother #love #poetry #poem

Michelle Awad Mar 2020

QUARANTINE DAY 6--

QUARANTINE DAY 6—
by Michelle Awad

  I have scratched all the polish
 off my nails.   

I’m biting them again.

You stare at your phone
 and show me 
the six-hundredth meme, 
and I smile
 weakly.

I stare at my computer
 screen.

For the first time in over 
a year, I write poetry
I have no 
intention
 of you ever seeing.

I imagine  

I feel hungry but cannot be
 bothered to eat
 the same way
 you don’t think about
 having *** with me.

Numbly.
 Absentmindedly. 
Honestly.

You still ask for a kiss 
when you have done
 a good job.

I thank you for making 
lunch again (kiss) I thank you 
for bringing me 
my charging cable (kiss) I 
thank you 
because you love me (kiss) you
love me (kiss) and  I feel
guilty
 that it doesn’t
seem enough  lately.

Stay inside, they said, 
it’s safer, they said.

What a load a ****.

#quarantine #poem #love #poetry

Michelle Awad Mar 2020

SUBURBAN LEGEND

SUBURBAN LEGEND  
by Michelle Awad

He said, 
he saw Bigfoot once, 
and he waved, or she,  
he forgot to ask, but anyway, 
Bigfoot waved, and then 
went on making footprints
 in the forest floor, and he
 said, he or she or they 
smelled
 like the wanton wishes 
of every stinking mortal 
who walks upright and
 has opposable thumbs  
and thinks being hairless  
of body makes them  
anything other than
 naked. He said,
 he saw a UFO once,
 that it wasn’t a plane
 or a weather balloon,  or a
reflection in his wire- framed
glasses, and you 
can’t tell him otherwise,  he said 
there were no stars that 
evening, but it went away
 as quickly as it came, like
 love, as 
fast as the morning, that 
a vapor trail of hope 
and possibility was all 
that remained, he said he 
saw his mother’s face
in  the fading.

 He left
 before I could tell him
 I am no  anomaly, no world
 wonder, no mystery, 
I am 
the place where  
things happen, I am 
the setting,
 I am the North American 
wilderness, the  night sky,
 the expanse of the  universe,
endless, the lack of  oxygen,
the silence so  deep and vast 
and empty it’s the closest  
we’ll ever know to the absolute, 
ultimate, big, scary   

Nothing.

  I am Loch Ness. 
There’s a monster 
inside me 
swimming around
 that some people  claim
 to have seen.

#poetry #poem #lochness #monster

Johnny Noiπ Oct 2018

Iwona [Sami and women] AWON

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Johnny Noiπ Jan 2019

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— The End —